CSMG (Central Scotland Meeting Group) – Edinburgh Photography Meet

Time for another Photography and social meeting of the Central Scotland Meeting Group with other members of the SWPP from Scotland.

This photography meeting was held in Edinburgh, Princess Street Park to be precise.  We had a good turnout for this meeting with members coming from as far afield as Tain, and Glasgow.  After the expense of parking in the Omni Centre at the last Edinburgh meet up I attended I decided to try and find on street parking, and was successful.  We were meeting at the Scot Monument near the entrance to the station and the park.  I recognised a few people, and others recognised us from the size of the group.

There were 11 of us in total, plus two models for the day Jai and Becky.  We decided to split into two groups for the morning session with Nikon users going off with Jai, and the Canon users staying with Becky.  I had brought my off camera flash gear after regretting not taking it the last time we had a meeting in Stirling. As others had brought their gear along too it was possible to have multiple flash setups so we had lots of fun whilst learning new techniques.

Most of the photography in the morning took place under an oak tree in the park, with us all taking turns on setting up different lighting scenarios and shooting Becky, admittedly light stands were in short supply so for my three flash shot I had to resort to aVAL (Voice activated light stand or person) for one of the lights.  The day also gave me a chance to speak to Matt about our upcoming first session on Mentor Me on Steroids.  I was just glad he was as nervous as me about it.

The image above was shot using Bryan Elliot’s 19” DMLS Beauty Dish held aloft by a handheld boom arm, with a fill light to camera right

The images above were shot using three flashes, one on a VAL (thanks Matt) 19” DMLS Beauty Dish from above and a speed light adding fill from either side.

Dinner time, saw us head to a small restaurant / coffee shop just off Princess Street, where the chatter about photography overshadowed the food and drink.  We took over an entire corner of the place for about an hour and a half.  Since we were all together again after lunch we headed back into the park but this time we all stayed together.  It was time to practise wedding photography, not really but there were some wedding photographers there and as we had both a male and female model some photography of them pretending to be a couple would not go amiss.

The rest of the afternoon was spent generally chatting, walking around the park to different locations for more photography practise and playing with lighting setups.

 

The shot Above was shot with a 19” DMLS Beauty Dish and ambient light as fill to camera left.

The Shot above single hand held speed light from camera right with second speed light adding rim /fill from behind bare bulb sitting just out of shot on a step behind Becky.

Again another enjoyable day at which I think everybody learnt at least something new or tried a different approach to their photography.  Thanks again to Matt for the organisation he does for these days and of course to Jai and Becky for being our very patient models for the day, although they did seem to enjoy each others company too.

Thats it for this post, I hope you enjoyed my recollection of events and of course the photography, as always let me know what you thought in the comments below.